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DIE BONTEBOK
Sunset over the Eastern Cape bushveld
HUNTING IN THE VALLEY BUSHVELD
By Greg Sykes
T
he 24th of July just could not roll around fast enough. Our hunting was late this year as normally on the 1st of May we find ourselves in the veld already. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, the day arrived and with the trailer hooked on and a full load of eager hunters, we pointed the old Toyota eastward. It is a long trek to the Eastern Cape, but the anticipation of spending time out in the bush shortened the road and as the kilometres drained away our excitement began to increase. Western Cape
hunters really have to travel far and wide for good hunting opportunities. Realisticly the closest being 500km and really good terrain being as far as 900km away. Our destination was Bowden farm, owned by Pete Dugmore. Bowden is an original 1820 settler farm that has been in the same family since those long gone frontier days. Bowden sits above the Great Fish River Valley with parts of the farm dropping off towards the river but never actually reaching it. The terrain is typical Eastern Cape valley bushveld with an abundance of “spekboom” (Portulacaria afra) which is the Kudu’s favourite feed. There are open plains at the top of the valleys that spread out into grassy plateau’s. The springbok and black Wildebeest speckle these plains and offer challenging stalking for those prepared to put in the effort to worm your way across the open areas. Since Ludy Starke, Wesley White and myself had only arrived in the afternoon, we decided to first stop in Graaff-Reinet, spend the night there and be off to a predawn start the next day. We hoped to be able to arrive on the farm early, sight in the guns and still get in an afternoon’s hunting. Tony Robinson and his son Steve would join us a day later.
To avoid the tedium of the 140km arrow straight road between Beaufort West and Aberdeen, we took the Nelspoort road to Murraysburg. The road eventually brought us to the back end of GraaffReinet. The road is a dirt road, but is well maintained and has a lot of game farms along the way. This always makes the road shorter as your attention is drawn to the veld to see what can be spotted. If you reach Graaff-Reinet early enough and you drive past the entrance to the Camdeboo National park, it is well worth the detour to drive up to the top of the mountain and walk along the cliffs that make up the Valley of Desolation. We arrived on the farm nice and early the next morning as expected and after the traditional pleasantries and a compulsory cup of coffee, we went to check on our equipment. We have the rule that we check hunting equipment before we shoot at animals, whilst we are ultra careful with the rifles to make sure we are properly zeroed in the Cape. One never knows what road Gremlins can creep in and shift the scope settings. All was good on the range and we left for an afternoon walkabout. The afternoon did not produce any animals but I can’t say that the time spent in the bush was unproductive. City eyes started to adapt, and stupid feet started to find the natural
